Population Council Projects | Poverty, Job Quality, and Labor Market Dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa

PROJECT
Poverty, Job Quality, and Labor Market Dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa

In recent years, the concept of job quality has attracted a great deal of attention in both research and policy circles. In contrast to the traditional focus on employment status, wages, and hours worked, recent research attempts to examine the quality of jobs in light of new notions of “decent work.” These developments have brought to the fore many issues related to overall job security, as well as less tangible issues of “freedom, equity, security and humanity dignity” (ILO 1999), all of which are now recognized as being key elements of job quality and satisfaction. While such research can be quite empirically challenging, the measurement of job quality provides insights to issues of poverty reduction, sustainable development, and the quality of life for the vast majority of people.

The goal of this project is to update the state of knowledge on labor market functioning and outcomes in general and the quality of jobs in particular, primarily for women and youth in Egypt. The study will seek to:

define the measures of job quality;
identify the determinants of job quality (with a particular focus on the connection between job quality and poverty);
document perceptions of job quality among the poor; examine the impact of integration into the global market on the quality of jobs in a local setting;
assess the impact of certain labor market reforms; and
provide policy recommendations for enhancing the job quality of the poor.

Council researchers will focus on women and youth because of their comparatively disadvantaged positions in labor markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While Egypt is the primary focus of the project—and may have a great deal in common with the rest of the Middle East/North Africa region in terms of labor market structure and the situation of young people and women within that market—researchers intend to check the generality of their findings by undertaking analysis of data from Jordan and Morocco.

Location

Egypt, Jordan, Morocco

Duration

August 2007–July 2009

Population Council researchers

Ragui Assaad, Ghada Barsoum, Nehal Elwan, Natalie Forcier, Rania Roushdy

Non-Council collaborators

Jackline Wahba (University of Southampton)

Mona Said

Donor

International Development Research Centre